Origins
by jaylis
Summary: Ordinary, he’s just ordinary ol’ Jack until the song ends and the Clown comes out.


**Title: Origins**

* * *

_"All it takes is one bad day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That's how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day. You had a bad day once. Am I right? You had a bad day and everything changed__." _

_- The Joker, __Batman: The Killing Joke_

Ordinary, he's just ordinary ol' Jack. _He could be almost cute_, his wife thinks as she puffs a cigarette. _But something 'bout him is too __**off. **_Nowadays, she has begun to regret marrying him. _What a slouch. _His matted blond hair lacks any rock star vibe and simply looks dirty. His yellowing shirts have stains that never wash out. He seems to rot where he stands, and yet he grows pathetically like mold in the moist, slimy dark. And Jack always has to be _**so **_serious, fretting and frowning over his job and the bills and why won't he shut the hell up about the smoking thing?

"Honey" he wheedles feebly. "Think about your condition. Think about the baby."

_Fuck the baby. _Defiantly, her teeth clamp down on the cigarette as she stares Jack in the eye and challenges him to do something. She knows he won't hit her. Apparently, his old man used to beat up on his mom, and he hates his father, doesn't want to be anything like his father.

Jack is still standing there stupidly, asking her silently to comply for once. _He's twitching_, she notices. _He always does that when he's nervous. _Laughing shrilly, his wife slowly gets up and squeezes his cheek.

"Why so serious?" she taunts him.

Jack twitches. His body convulses.

One hand fastens tightly around her wrist, and he suddenly shoves her back onto the couch.

"Jack, are you crazy?" she yelps. "You could've hurt the baby!"

He slaps her. The sting seemingly paralyzes her, and she sits, dazed and silenced.

"I asked you nicely," Jack whispers, his voice shaky. "But you didn't listen. Why didn't you just listen?"

He walks into the kitchen; she hears him fumbling through drawers. When Jack returns, he keeps one hand behind his back. Her eyes gape. The sweat gathers at the base of her neck, and she crosses her arms over her bulging stomach protectively.

"What are you doing Jack?"

"Nothing darling," he coos with coin-bright eyes. He looks positively excited. "My love, light of my life, I would never hurt you."

He reaches out one arm with fingers curled like a claw, grips her chin, and leans in close.

"Jack won't hurt you, but I will." It's her husband speaking, but it's not his voice. The tone borders between hilarity and insanity. "Jack ol' boy is taking the day off, m'dear. You're going to play with me today."

Finally, he reveals the knife and waves it with jerky motions. He hums a melody off-tune, but she recognizes "Pop goes the weasel."

"Do you know what happens when the song ends?" he asks, and when she doesn't answer, he tells her. "The _**Clown **_comes out."

His wife has started to cry.

"Why so serious?" he questions, chuckling.

She screams and screams, and at last, the household of ordinary Jack falls silent.

* * *

_I thought how strange it had never occurred to me before that I was only purely happy until I was nine years old._

_- The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath_

Bruce Wayne is born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In Gotham, the Wayne family might as well be the royal dynasty, and the manor is located safely off the city limits like Versailles separated from Paris. The boy grows up, worshipping his father, adoring his mother. For him, there will never be anything as pure and perfect as childhood.

Like most children, Bruce does not think about the future. Instead, he concentrates on reaching the can of condensed milk on the top shelf while Rachel distracts Alfred with a cherubic smile. Of course, Bruce has scuffles and falls, skinned knees and one particularly bad tumble down a well, but the pain pales in comparison to the joy.

In the future, he will close his eyes and dream of the blissful years. He will try to regain a sense of his mother's perfume, his father's supporting hands, and the sweetness of the condensed milk in his mouth.

And he will fail.

* * *

_"__Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules.__"  
"Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."  
__Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right — I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game._

_- The Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger_

Harvey Dent is born with little to call his own. In Gotham, he and his mother live in a dingy, one-bedroom apartment with a toilet that flushes on a whim and a seemingly immortal clan of cockroaches. He wakes to the roar of the train outside his window and falls asleep to the neighbors' angry arguments. The boy grows up without a father; he grows up watching his mother as she works and works and succumbs to disease. For him, there will never be anything as miserable as childhood.

Unlike other children, Harvey constantly thinks about the future. He focuses on scoring straight As and absorbing all the information he can and chasing away the roaches that accumulate in the sink.

In the future, he will close his eyes and try to ignore memories of hunger and cold, of his mother dying in her hospital bed and still worrying about expensive medical bills.

And he will fail.


End file.
